The Fox's Start

Four years after Voldemort was defeated, Draco Malfoy's Auror partner is killed in a surprise attack, right after his life finally had some semblance of order. Draco's magic quickly spirals out of control as a result and he's dumped in the past-not at the start of his Hogwarts career, as some might expect, but at the start of his very life! Normally this wouldn't be a problem; however, Draco's animagus form seems to be surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) possessive of his old partner. The only problem with this? His old partner is none other than Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. Post-HP7 at start, pre-/during-HP1 afterward with major changes, epilog does not exist

Prolog
"What the hell?"

Having woken up under the effects of Polyjuice and Glammours more times than he could count, Draco Malfoy really wasn't all that affected when he woke up to find himself the size of a toddler. However, he was affected when he opened his eyes and found himself in a strange room he dimly, but not fully recognized, without any sign of his wand or his Auror partner and/or mate.

Needless to say Draco shouted wordlessly in surprise, sitting up only to fall backwards almost instantly. He slowly blinked in a confused daze before he took the time to sort through his thoughts. He was in an unknown place, for an unknown reason, without his wand or his Auror partner and/or mate, in the body of a...

Draco glanced down at said body and pulled a face. Right, a toddler. How...nice.

"What the hell?" asked the Auror aloud, only for it to come out in a higher and familiar voice that caused him to slowly blink in shock. That voice was his voice, but it was higher-pitched and held a slight lisp. The last time Draco had held that voice and that lisp was when he was...three, wasn't it?

Dread pooled itself into Draco's stomach as he tentively held out his limbs for examination. Sure enough, chubby toddler limbs (Merlin, he missed his thinness already!) covered in skin paler than it'd been for years met his gaze. He reached up and tugged surprisingly thick strands of white-blond hair in front of his eyes with his uncomfortably large fingers, a frown alighting to his face when he saw how much darker it was than he was used to.

Not only that, but upon glancing around the room, Draco finally realized he was in one of his older bedrooms in the Malfoy Manner. One that he hadn't used since he was five.

...dammit, there was no other explination. Something must have happened to send him back in time, to when he was just a child, most likely two or three. But what, and why?

As the door to his room creeked open, Draco quickly blinked away his confusion, staring with wide eyes at the form of his younger and much less stressed mother.

"Draco, are you awake?" she asked softly, a slight smile on her face. Draco blinked, this time in surprise, a few times before he was swept up into his mother's arms. She was quickly cooing over him, causing the now-toddler to mentally sigh in annoyance.

It looked like Draco would have to resign himself to being a child, at least until he could figure out what to do to go back to normal.

If he wanted to in the first place...

Chapter One
"..."

For two years, Draco Malfoy wondered often why the hell he had been sent back to this time.

Then he decided he honestly didn't care and instead focused on trying (and somewhat failing) to act as he had when he was young.

It had only taken a few days for Draco to find out that he had actually been returned to the age of two, much to his silent disgust. During those few days he had acted more like he was an intelligent three-year-old, clearly confusing his poor parents, and as a result he couldn't drop that act when he found out his true age. Luckily, Lucius Malfoy decided that he and Narcissa should just take the whole thing as a sign of good parenting and acted appropriately.

Not until Draco untintentially stopped following his father like a little puppy did Lucius become at all concerned. While Draco had never been particularly clingy (well, until he was out of his toddler years, at least), he had taken obvious delight in going with his father to work and gazing in awe at the Ministry of Magic. On the other hand, the older Draco had worked at the Ministry six or seven days a week and was rather disenchanted, instead seeming only mildly interested and content to focus more on the people there than the magnificent structure.

His mother, too, noticed a change in her son. Narcissa had become used to her son often crying when she left the room, or having minor fits if left alone in his small toddler bed for too long after waking up. This was completely in-character for younger Draco, but as soon as his older self moved into the body, he was oddly quiet most of the time, including during the instances mentioned above.

However, neither were too concerned until, when he was a few months older than four, Draco suddenly woke up in the middle of the night screaming like he was being tortured by the Cruciatus Curse a thousand times over. Which was certainly what the not-young eventual-/past-Auror felt like what was happening to him.

"Draco?!" cried Narcissa as she banged open the door to his room, rushing in and hesitating next to her child's bed. Lucius wasn't even a step behind, wand drawn, and both froze with visibly wide eyes when they caught sight of their son thrashing wildly in his bed, face paler than ever, sweat covering his small body, fingers curling to grasp at the sheet as he screamed to the heavens.

Within moments, Lucius was on one side of the bed and Narcissa was on the other, both holding their son down to the best of their ability. While any muggle doctor or Mediwitch could tell that was a bad idea, the two parents didn't know that, trying to soothe their son as best they could. Then, suddenly, two gray eyes snapped open, bloodshot and wild.

A gasp escaped Draco's throat, interupting the screams. "Harry-" he managed to get out before irises rolled out of sight and he collapsed, eyes closed again and his chest rising and falling with erratic breathing.

Silence fell between the two wide-eyed parents, who stared at each other incredulously.

"You don't think...?" Narcissa whispered, voice wavering as she continued to hold Draco's arm/chest/leg. Lucius quickly shook his head and straightened, turning towards the doorway.

"It's impossible," he said with finality before he swept out of the room. For a moment, Narcissa hesitated before leaning forward to gently kiss her son's forehead and following her husband, gently closing the door behind her.

Almost as soon as the latch clinked, tired gray eyes opened slowly to blink with obvious bleariness at the ceiling. It took a few moments for him to sigh wearily.

"Dammit, Potter," he muttered, unable to do much more than close his eyes, "you just have to always be a pain in my ass..." For a long moment, Draco rested, allowing his natural magic to heal his exhaustion before he could open his eyes again. There was fond annoyance visible on his features as he slowly sat up in bed. "I guess I have to go save you, again..."

Without much more thought, Draco cautiously slung his legs around the side of the bed and dropped down onto the floor with near silence, sparing the door a cursory glance before he cautiously walked to the window near his bed. Within a few seconds he had pulled forth his animagus form for the first time since arriving in the past, relieved when it took only a second longer than usual.

If anyone had been looking in on the Malfoy Manor that night, specifically the West Wing near a corner overlooking the front gates, they would have seen a white-blond blur just barely larger than a dog sweeping out of a window before dashing out of sight.

Draco, in his animagus form, didn't slow down from his lengthy, smooth gait until he reached the outskirts of the small neighborhood of Little Whingington, Surry. It was then that he reduced his run to a slow, slinking walk, pausing only when he was outside of Number Four, Private Drive.

It only then occurred to Draco that, in his haste to get to Harry Potter's house, he hadn't bothered to see if his form was affected by the time travel. He swept a quick glance over his body, taking account of its features.

His body, thin in his (adult) human form, was sleek and streamline, its length maybe five and a half feet ignoring head and tails. Muscle rippled discretely under pale white/blond fur, traveling down long vulpine legs that ended in large paws with deadly clawed tips, and up a long, thin neck to a triangular head topped with two pointed ears. Thin, nearly unnoticed whiskers pointed out from behind a wet black nose, which twitched upon being noticed, and set slightly into his skull were two mercury eyes with slit pupils that were known to entrance any who looked into them. It was with relief that Draco decided his form was unaltered from what he remembered, every inch sleek, cunning, deadly kitsune.

Until he noticed his tails, which seemed to have multiplied from two to five in the span of, arguably, two (or negative seventeen) years.

"What?" mewled Draco in fox-speak, staring incredulously at the graceful-looking, silky tails, each easily as long as his own body. He brought them around for inspection and gently nipped on each with his sharp teeth, surprisingly unsurprised when he found they were all real. All right, so his magical power had grown expinentially in a short period of time; weirder things had happened, mostly thanks to his long-time association with Harry Potter. Besides, he had an injured boy to take care of.

Without further ado, Draco allowed his tails to flare out behind him as he bounded towards the door, his latent kitsune magic easily clicking the lock and swinging it open for him. The vulpine creature crept through the house silently, not even his claws making a sound as they supposedly "clicked" the floor, allowing him to make his way unnoticed to the living room. A choaked sob from behind the door under the stairs caught his attention, his ears perking up, and he cautiously made his way over to it.

It was with some shock and much anger that Draco identified the sobs as belonging to his Harry.

The door's lock clicked and the door itself swooshed open almost instantly as Draco's fur bristled slightly, causing a black-topped head to snap up and emerald green eyes to stare in shock. Ignoring the incredulous look, Draco made his way to the bed and daintily jumped on top of it, sitting down and curling his tails around his back legs as he stared unwaveringly into Harry's eyes. It took only two heartbeats before Harry sniffed loudly.

"...h-hullo," the black-haired boy said quietly, looking afraid that he was going to scare Draco away. The kitsune animagus mentally snorted at the thought; he'd lived with Potter for a good ten years, four of them literally, so there was no chance he would be scared away now.

Seemingly encouraged, Harry slowly reached out his hand towards Draco, holding it limply in front of Draco's nose. The blond was, needless to say, incredulous and silently amused by the action. What, did Harry want him to sniff it, or something? Repulsive! Rediculous! Re...re...well, Un-Malfoy!

Yet Draco found himself doing exactly that, once, before he nuzzled his head under Harry's hand and gazed at the boy with affectionately mocking silver-violet eyes. Harry grinned toothily at the reaction and soon had Draco curled in his lap, the other boy's small hand carding its careful way through Draco's soft fur.

"I'm Harry," Potter said after a few minutes later, causing Draco to open a single eye lazily so he could observe the boy's face. There was a pause before Harry frowned unsurely, his hand stilling halfway down Draco's back. "...at least...I think that's my name." His voice suddenly dropped to a whisper, as if he were afraid someone would overhear what he was going to say next. "Uncle Vernon says I'm too much of a freak to have a name, but Ms. Figg always calls me that when I go to visit her, and Aunt Petunia tells me I should answer to it."

Draco mewled at the information, lifting his head as murderous thoughts ran through his head. Who would dare to tell a child, let alone Harry Potter, they didn't deserve a name?! Such an insult would be punishable by death in a pureblood family, or even most halfblood families! Names were powerful things, sacred as far as wizarding folk were concerned, and to deny a wizard (or muggle, for that matter) his or her name was...was...

Harry blinked slowly at Draco, looking confused, but began petting the strange fox again despite the odd noises he was making. "Are you okay?"

Quickly, Draco smoothed his ruffled fur both literally and figuratively and mewled again, this time much more softly and comfortingly. Harry smiled at that and giggled lightly, reaching forward with his other arm so that he could pet Draco's back with both hands.

"You're really pretty," Harry whispered, smile turning into a grin when Draco made a noise of agreement and shot the Savior a superior, duh-I-am-how-couldn't-you-notice-before-? look. "Yeah, I guess it is kinda obvious, haha. Sorry."

Contented with this statement, Draco moved a bit to become more comfortable in Harry's lap before he laid still, resting his head on his paws. His mercury eyes were trained on Harry's face with curiousity, silently urging him to continue speaking, which Harry soon did.

"...you're not a normal fox, are you?" Draco rolled his eyes and brought around his tails to wiggle them in Harry's face, causing the child to laugh cheerfully before brushing them away. "Okay, okay, that was obvious, too!" Draco obediently pulled his tails back and wrapped them instead around his own body, tilting his head at Harry as the boy continued to gaze curiously at Draco. "What are you?"

-END-

MKL's Post-Production Notes (8-20-13): SPOILERS: This would have probably have been slash/yaoi by the end. Draco would have eventually reawakened Harry's memories with his kitsune-magic as well as the memories of others he considers "pack", ie. his parents, Snape, Blaise (whose character I've never really experimented with before so it would have been interesting)...I don't remember if there were others but that's the main group anyway. That's about all I had planned really.